JHRover

Well whoever is advising Rovers on this must be clear that we have a solid case. Personally I like the idea of arbitration simply because it will take the final decision out of the hands of the EFL board.

I was surprised to learn that we had only lost 1 in 8. It seems since the break our 'up and down' form has levelled out into more consistency, meaning less wins but less defeats. Although the football hasn't been thrilling, and goals have been hard to come by, we have had some creditable results of late. Draws at Watford and Bristol City not to be sniffed at. Wins at Norwich hard to come by. Clean sheets at home v Wigan and Cardiff. It's frustrating because the draws are now flowing but this means we slip down the table. If we were following the early season trajectory we'd have lost at Watford but beat Wigan and have more points to take from it. Clearly the goal element is the problem. Shame there was no backing for the manager and team by bringing someone in on that front. One or two astute additions up that end could have made the world of difference.

That time has been and gone. The owners and their henchmen made their intentions perfectly clear, and now they are attempting to make out that it is all down to administrative issues or boxes not being ticked. As for Mowbray I do find it interesting. He inherits an upwardly mobile club bouncing after promotion last year, has them in the top 6 for 5 minutes and people are gushing over his credentials. Meanwhile JDT has had us in the top 6 ALL season after inheriting a shambles from Mowbray and seems to be getting stick from multiple angles.

Reading looking like dark horses for relegation too. Always a question of when, not if, with Ince running things there.

QPR have collapsed since Beale went to Rangers. Dropping like a stone. Haven't won at home in about 4 months and no wins in 10 or something. Critchley will be under big pressure there soon. I dread our game there in a couple of weeks because it will either be last chance saloon and turning point for them or they'll make a change right before the game and will be well up for it.

Another struggling, town Championship club attracting foreign investment? Can't be true I keep getting told Venkys are the only show in town and that nobody would ever be interested in buying such clubs.

Broughton has already confirmed that the lawyers dealing with it were Centrefields in Manchester.

I remember back in 2016 that people said we should avoid him because of his age and because he would only be around a short while before retiring. He can't. He obviously loves it to keep coming back at that sort of age. Some relief on my part we aren't in that particular battle because my money is now on Huddersfield stopping up. Biggest worry is our match there in a few weeks.

Standard EFL stuff. Incapable of reaching a decision promptly. No wonder hardly anyone has ever been punished for FFP issues when it takes them weeks to even determine if a player was signed properly or not. What I would like to know is whether Rovers will be seeking some form of damages from the League if our appeal is successful. We've already had Wigan and Watford without O'Brien in the side and seems like WBA too. 3 big games that could be crucial to our play-off prospects. If we are successful in our appeal and have missed out on his services for such games through no fault of our own I'd hope Rovers were assessing chances of compensation.

Yep, the cynic in me draws a line between the transfer deadline fiasco, spotlight turning on those running the Club and sees this as an easy attempt to claw back some credit with the fanbase. Others have rightly pointed out that all this is likely to do is put a dent in what Rovers are taking home from the Leicester game. Even if we fill our allocation of 2,200 from a gate of 20,000+ the impact on takings will be minimal and such income will be 'bonus' money for Waggott that he won't have factored into his projections for the year.

I'm excited about the prospect of the derby game moving. First it scuppers Sky/Rovers/police who want it at 12noon on a Sunday. Second it will be fascinating to see how they accommodate it elsewhere in the calendar. Only a couple of things are certain. It will be £30 a ticket for home fans and we'll roll out the red carpet to them.

The managers secretary gets seats in the box?

Well I'm convinced JDT will do well to last the season and will walk before next season starts. I wanted him to get the rest of this season and next summer and see how he got on next season with time and backing behind him but the Clubs conduct in the January window has torpedoed that. This has proven that there is no plan, no project, no ambition and that even when we find ourselves in a good league position they won't back the team to try and get the job done. JDTs interview tonight tells us everything - he's been let down and it is almost laughable to think we've reduced our squad size and options. So it won't be long before we can discuss which dreary desperate name comes next willing to put up with Venky shenanigans every window.

All the ingredients were there. Night match, Sky TV, struggling side coming to Ewood, Wigan who always seem to raise their game and performance levels when playing Rovers. So to be totally honest there's an element of relief that we didn't fall behind and lose it. Disappointing but not surprising. They were well up for it and were quicker in attack, we were once again too slow, ponderous and round the houses in our approach. I thought there were 3-4 decent performances by recent standards. CBs did a solid job, I increasingly like Carter who doesn't do much wrong. Travis had a decent game with some good forward play especially in the first half. Thomas a good debut and nice to actually have a winger to get the ball to and deliveries in. Pears continued his solid run of appearances. The Club gave up on any aims of promotion in January so a point keeps us ticking over on the road to nowhere., so we might as well accept it and take the point. Good news for those who run the club with zero ambition.

No demotion. No points deduction. No ban from competitions. No real transfer embargo. I can confidently predict none of these things will happen. What will happen is months of negotiations, wrangling, back and forth speculation, culminating in a fines, soft embargo or suspended punishment, none of which will cause a club like City any serious problem.

They always manage to rely on examples of players who have joined the parachute laden clubs and use that as evidence how 'we can't compete'. I'm yet to come across anyone who seriously expects us to outbid such clubs, it's a fact of life they can offer more, fortunately there are only a small number of rivals with parachute cash, and that doesn't stop recruitment taking place elsewhere, you've just got to be able to move on to other targets quickly. Interestingly there is little reference to the multiple rival clubs who have been able to get business done rather than whinge about how unfair life is all the time.

0-0 We dominate possession and chances but can't convert. They put in a shift to impress their new manager and will be happy with a result. We've recently learnt how to draw games.

Nobody is picking up the debt. Why should they? That money is the running costs of the last 10 years. If takeovers of football clubs included requirements that new owners had to refund the last 10 years of overspending then no club would ever get taken over. How it works is that Venkys and everyone else need to realise that this money is gone, spent, their tab for owning the club and negligently doing so. They have to walk away from it and sell the Club to a new owner debt free. It might sound unlikely but that's what happens in most takeovers. And it isn't a £300 million debt, it is about half that.

I don't think that is fair to say. Mowbray had over 5 years on his 'project' the high point and culmination of which ended with a disastrous second half to last season with relegation level form which somehow dragged us from a nailed on top 6 spot in January to miss out. JDT has had less than 1 year and a fraction of the resources Mowbray enjoyed so seems unfair to expect him to better Mowbray's high point in his first attempt at it. We know there is no real project or build but I don't think that is anything to do with Mowbray, JDT or Broughton, it just sounds good to the owners and fans but in reality there is no plan here from the top down other than make ends meet within the budget each year.

The Club, through the owners and board, have shown that they don't want promotion and have no interest in remaining near the top of the league. With that I struggle to see why they deserve any of our support. But the manager and the players do, because like performances or not we have been in a healthy position and I'm sure they would like to keep it going. A win is needed, and hopefully a comfortable/resounding one.

Always tomorrow, never today That's the motto of Venky Rovers.

My belief is: Someone, be that Waggott, Pasha or someone at ownership level, made a decision that we needed to go down the DofF route. I suspect one of the reasons for this was that they felt Mowbray had too much power and influence and that they needed a more 'sustainable' model for when he cleared off. I completely agree with that idea, a club in our position in the 21st century, particularly one with foreign absentee owners, needs someone running the show in terms of recruitment and football other than the manager, otherwise the manager becomes indispensable. So no problem with DofF structure, and he we clearly handed authority to lead recruitment and appointments on that side of things. My expectation is that despite handing some authority to this new structure and letting them get on with it in a much more sensible way than flying them out to India in the summer, the owners continue to retain final decision making power, particularly on decisions and deals of a particular level. So Broughton identifies what we need, works hard to get it lined up, things start to move, but then when it comes down to the crunch and final approval is needed from India or the shadow man it doesn't arrive. Nothing more can be done. The last 12 years is littered with examples and rumours of occasions when we've been 'in' for a player, or indeed another club has been 'in' for one of our players, but things just don't get done, because Indian approval cannot be secured. People convincing themselves that Venkys, in some heroic attempt to lead us to promotion, gambled and rejected offers for Rothwell and Diaz, in doing so costing them millions but giving us a better chance of promotion, I think are on the wrong lines. Whilst they didn't accept offers for them, this wasn't because they were sticking up for us and giving us a better chance, it was because nobody could get them to agree in good enough time for such deals to go through. The Rothwell saga last January was O'Brien this January in reverse - approval not acquired = deal doesn't happen. Broughton takes the flak for it because he's the one with the job title, he's the one who lined the deal up, he's the one who has to pick up the pieces. All it means is he will look elsewhere for work, as will JDT. Both have come into this Club seeing what we have and liking it, thinking there's an opportunity here for success. I think most 'outsiders' would do the same - great traditional club, huge losses funded every year, good academy, great facilities, reaching distance of the PL. Then when you get inside the building and see how life at Venky Rovers really works this happens. With Kean, Bowyer and Mowbray they found people who would put up with such rubbish because they occupied positions they wouldn't have had elsewhere and wouldn't get again if they left. With JDT and Broughton I think they will have other irons in the fire and won't be here much longer. Then we get to see which desperate loser comes next.

This is one of my theories. Broughton can claim until he is blue in the face that O'Brien wouldn't have broken the fabled 'wage structure' but I simply don't believe that. Even if he was 'only' on £30k a week at Forest and even if we were 'only' paying half of that it would still make him one of our biggest earners, placing him in similar territory to Dack and Ayala. Nothing the Club has done in the last 3-4 years suggests those sort of wages are on offer these days. So on that basis even if we go with those low figures it is clear this would have placed strain on the wage structure. I don't think it is therefore unreasonable to suggest that either the owners, money men or Waggott intervened to stop the deal going through in time after Broughton had done the leg work in getting it all agreed. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that we are told money is available and business can be done, but then it doesn't actually materialise.

Having watched Broughton's interview, despite his claims of ultimate responsibility, I am even more convinced of the opposite. His demeanour is a far cry from that of last summer when he was confident and assertive in his interviews. He looks panic stricken, distressed, confused, and makes multiple references to 'internal factors', which he won't elaborate on. As with all his predecessors he is very quick to avoid sending any blame in the owners' direction (presumably the only way anyone gets sacked at Rovers is if they go after the owners). He is silent as to the two goons in the shadows. As was predicted when Broughton was appointed and as I expected a couple of days ago they will make him into the fall guy. They will want the fans and manager to direct anger towards him and he takes all the grief on that front. Waggott avoids any such scrutiny or accountability, as does the shadow man. Almost as though this was the plan all along? A familiar pattern emerges with Broughton and JDT as with previous ambitious people who entered the mad house of Venky Rovers and get worn down by it. Demeanour visibly changes. I've been impressed with Broughton thus far and I think his appointment was a welcome one. Unfortunately I think he and JDT are now learning the hard way what they are up against. And I keep on coming back to the point that this is nothing new. We've had very similar stuff for the last 4-5 January windows. Can't blame Broughton for those windows, so let's look at the constants in the failure.

How very convenient. Almost as though the appointment of the Director of Football has already accomplished what it was set out to do - let someone else take the blame for another failed transfer window whilst the real culprits get off scot free. Waggott is CEO. An important and very well paid job - for a reason. Not so he can 'represent' the Club at away games on the complementaries, but so he can oversee and ensure that the Club functions properly and succeeds. That means he is ultimately responsible for the entire operation. Even if it is true that responsibility for transfers lies with Broughton in the hierarchy Waggott sits above him, presumably appointed him and so should carry the can when things go wrong. Was it Steve Waggott's fault that we lost £20 million worth of playing assets in the last few transfer windows or was that nothing to do with him either?